Brent-based rally driver, Paul Smith, led the only all-London crew to tackle this year’s Rally Yorkshire when he teamed up with Twickenham co-driver and former Evening Standard journalist Ian Harden.

The Yorkshire event, which has been run every year since 1977 except for in 2001 when it was cancelled as a consequence of the foot-and-mouth outbreak, this year took place on the final weekend in September and was a round of no fewer than 10 rally championships, including the MSA English Rally Championship and the BTRDA Rally First Series - the two championships in which Smith has been competing in this year.

The rally was once again based at Pickering Showground and saw competitors tackle iconic forestry roads in the North York Moors, including the legendary Dalby forest.

Go Go Go: Smith at the start (Image: Paul Smith)

Smith, out to make amends for the mechanical failure that befell his 1.4L Volkswagen Polo on his previous event, the Woodpecker Stages in Shropshire, after less than 10 stage miles, and not having had any competitive mileage in the car since then, took the first stage, Langdale, steadily.

On the next stage, Allerston, Smith increased his pace as he became more comfortable with the car and his new co-driver to record a time that was quicker than a number of more modified vehicles.

No mistakes and an even faster pace over the next two stages, Gale Rigg and Cropton, saw Smith and Harden again beat a collection of more powerful cars.

However, on the penultimate stage Smith and Harden were to suffer an off-track excursion that would ultimately prove fatal to their chances of finishing the rally and collecting championship points.

Within a few hundred metres of the finish of the 6.35 miles Staindale stage, the crew slid off the road at a tight left-hand corner, which had already claimed 19 other cars that day, and landed heavily in the undergrowth of tree stumps and bracken thanks to having been launched into the air by a bank of earth that had formed on the outside of the corner due to the passage of preceding cars.

Fast: Smith (Image: Paul Smith)

The crew eventually extracted their VW Polo with the help of some generous and enthusiastic spectators and managed to limp to the end of the stage with steam pouring out from under the bonnet.

On the following road section linking the Staindale stage with the final stage, Dalby, the crew pulled up to have a closer look at the damage.

They found that the landing had pushed-in the front bumper, radiator and fan and a large portion of Yorkshire’s finest soil had attached itself to the front of the car.

After spending the best part of 15 minutes extracting rocks, branches and mud from the lower-front-bumper section of the car as well as the engine bay, the crew attempted to continue, but it was soon apparent that that the car’s cooling system had been holed and it would be wiser to retire from the rally than cause further damage by destroying the engine from overheating.

Smith commenting after the event said, “This was the only mistake we made all day, but mistakes in rallying are, more often than not, cruelly punished.

"Unlike circuit racing there is no artificial grass or tarmac run-off area where you can run wide before re-joining the track unscathed. There is just no room for an error like this in rallying - a minor misjudgement will often end your event, as it did for me today.”

Smith now plans to tackle some tarmac rallies before the end of the year in order to evaluate his options for 2016. Smith, a former circuit, says he prefers tarmac, but deliberately contested a number of gravel rallies this year in order to gain more experience of driving competitively on loose surfaces.

Smith’s next rally will be the Glyn Memorial Stage Rally at Anglesey, a two day tarmac event held over the weekend of 31st October to 1st November and which includes stages in the dark.